What Are The EVs That Have Set The Industry Back?

While the plug-in industry as a whole has been on a unprecedented run since the first of the ‘next generation’ of EVs were introduced 4 years ago, not all plug-in vehicles have done their fair share advancing the segment. Some have crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

When The Th!nk City Was First Announced It Had A US MSRP Of “Just” $41,695

Cadillac ELR – too pricey, not enough of a step-change, “If you are going to build the first electric car in a luxury brand’s history, either make it an improvement upon everything else in the corporation’s past or don’t do it at all.”

Fisker Karma – corporate failure to deliver meant the death of one of the highest profile EVs on the planet

CODA – no explanation needed; visual confusion with 90s Hyundai products be damned, the company went bankrupt in May of 2013

Lexus LS 600h L – its not an EV, so its shouldn’t even be on the list…although it was a ridiculous offering just the same

Th!nk City – it was $36,495, made of recycled plastic, and about 10 years too late to the market to be a success

Chevrolet Volt – more on that below

CODA – So Depressing It Hurts

While we can appreciate some of the names on the list, the inclusion of the Chevrolet Volt at #7 pretty much shoots any credibility the Wall Street Cheat Sheet had coming into the thought experiment in our opinion.

Here is what they had to say about the Volt:

High Profile Failures (like the CR breakdown pictured), Fires, Technical Problems And Bankruptcy Made The Karma Everything The Volt Wasn’t

“Is the Chevy Volt a lemon? No, it would be unfair to call this GM electric offering a terrible car. Then again, as the main electric vehicle on the market prior to the Chevy Spark EV (which no one knows is on the market), the Volt is a relatively weak product from the biggest automaker in the world at the time of the car’s development. It wasn’t until Tesla disrupted the industry that Dan Akerson, then chief executive, dedicated a task force to studying the EV maker in order to confront the challenge.

Since the debut of the Volt in 2010, the automaker has not managed to get the car’s electric range beyond 38 miles. In some respects, GM did improve the car’s exterior styling, interior, and technology. The only problem was it is called the Cadillac ELR and costs $75,000.”

Clearly the financial paper missed the fact that GM opened up the world’s eyes to the possibility of driving a plug-in car without the fear of range anxiety, and thus bridging the gap to a more and more electric future.

Since the Volt’s debut, more PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) have been sold in America (and worldwide) than pure electrics, while the short term advancement of the EV industry is heavily dependant on the success of the plug-in hybrid model. Today, new PHEV debuts outnumber PEVs by more than a 3 to 1 margin.

Past the introduction of the PHEV business model to the mainstream, the Chevrolet Volt’s level of refinement and over-engineering has helped to solidify plug-in vehicles as inherently safe and highly reliable – something that could not be said of many of the vehicles left off the list.

While we will stop short of making our own list, we will ask “Is this list a fair one? Which plug-ins should not have been included? Which were missed?”

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This is a very provocative topic which is bound to result in an unnecessary pissing contest.

Although some of these vehicles are definitely commercial failures, I would suggest none have really “set back” the Electrification Cause. They all have made some contribution to mind share at least, even if they have missed their marketing or technical targets.

Had an EV model exploded every other day, or electrocuted people, then that would be a set back. But that hasn’t been the case for any of them.

Ha Jay, I see you’ve adopted my terminology of “over-engineering” to describe the Volt 🙂

Definitely the WSJ is being too harsh on the Volt. But it’s not alone in being wrongly placed on that list. We have many readers (and contributors?) here who are very happy with their i-MiEV.

It has taken American automakers 40 years to learn to make a half-decent compact; let alone a subcompact. Culturally, most Americans and surely a conservative paper like the WSJ just don’t get it when it comes to small cars.

In a few days we’ll learn whether there are still enough Americans who do get it, now that the i-MiEV is offered at what is without question, the lowest cost-of-ownership new car deal in the continent.

At the time the Mitsubishi i-miev first came out in 2012 it was a $30,000 EV which was even more expensive then the Nissan leaf before it’s major price cut. Mitsubishi though got smart and added more features and cut the price by $6500 which brought the price of the EV down into a sense of reason. Personally though I think they could cut’s price down another few thousand or raise it’s range by 20 to 40 miles next year or the year after that in the 2015 model. As for the Chevy Volt what hurt it getting out the door was they wanted $40,000 for it. And that $40,000 dollar price tag killed it no mater how much they try to Change things. The Cadillac ER was a train wreak in that they basically went swimming into Tesla’s fish tank and got eaten by the Tesla Bass. If the Volt was the price of a regular Prius it would do really well. The Cadillac should have been the 40,000 to $50,000 dollar car. I really think though the dumbest thing that is not on here is the Murder of the EV1 electric car by GM. In that in the… Read more »

Nothing really to add to the above, except that I appreciate this posting and the support shown by InsideEVs for the Volt. I will continue to shake my head and resist the urge to reward the “Wall Street Cheat Sheet” (who are they again?) by clicking the link.

Oh and research is a wonderful thing. WSCS should look into it. Hard to really consider the i-MiEV as “setting the industry back” when its technology is used in the Outlander PHEV, one of the best selling plug-ins in the world.

The original article is clickbait, pure and simple, and the Volt was the biggest worm on the hook.

No one assessing the situation with even a smattering of understanding would put the Volt on this list.

And I predict that the new Mitsu will do MUCH better than v1.0 did.

As I’ve said before, the EV market right now is very reminiscent of the early days of the IBM PC, roughly from 1981 to 1985. Lots of turnover and innovation and some goofy ideas. Lots of people shunning the technology because it’s a “toy”, etc., only to be proved wrong. (With PCs it was mostly processor speed and memory density that made the difference, and in EVs it’s better batteries, obviously.)

The idiots will continue to say dumb things about EVs, and then when the obvious trends prove them wrong they’ll either claim they never said those things or make believe it never happened and move on to the next clickbait target.

Given that others can get significant more range in a similar sized package, I’d say GM has been sitting on their rears on that one. Sure, the Volt has a lot to like but a battery range less that the i3 with REX is not respectable.

It was never a matter of whether GM could make more electric range. They sized it specifically for to meet the average driving needs of 3/4 of America based on DOE surveys, with a gas engine to go as far as you need. It’s really that simple.

I would say the Volt has not held the industry back, except for a lack of understanding in the news media and general public about the car.. Which GM could have rectified by now with some decent advertising. I constantly encounter people who think 38 miles is the total range it can travel. Or that nearly every one manufactured has burned to the ground spontaneously. So in that regard, sure.. the Volt has hurt the segment but it is definitely nothing to do with the car itself.

The i-MiEV in all honesty shouldn’t be there. It’s on the list because Edmunds disapproved of it, that’s largely because of its old, high price tag. It was a sting to the reputation of EVs and Mitsubishi. Now the price is dropped by 20% as we all know, it’s far more closer to its actual value and that makes me think that it doesn’t deserve to be on that list. The i-MiEV is the perfect example of how quickly EVs can improve and become cheaper over a short amount of time and in different ways.

Either that they were poor at gathering some recent information, they had a distain for it or they picked a name out of the hat.

As a Volt owner I’m not too proud to say there is one negative thing the Volt has done for plug in vehicles: added confusion. It’s not a simple car to understand…for some people.

If I had one judgement to make on the Volt after four years of production it’s this: those that understand the Volt love it (look at the awards and owner surveys), those that don’t understand it either dismiss it or hate it (look at the relatively flat sales numbers and hit piece articles).

Cadillac ELR – OK . . . this is accurate.
Mitsubishi i-MiEV – No. It is what it is .. . a cheap little commuter EV. For $13K (after incentives in California), you can have a little commuter. It is not much but it shows EVs don’t have to super expensive.
Fisker Karma – OK, they have a point here. Bad Engineering.
CODA – No one even knows it existed so who cares?
Lexus LS 600h L – not an EV, it shouldn’t even be on the list
Th!nk City – Was too pricey and bad aerodynamics.
Chevrolet Volt – Absolutely ridiculous. This was a big success.

Agree with the list in large part.
I’d add the other GM “hybrid” offerings to that list. At $60-70k, they were entirely a joke. I find it funny to see a Tahoe “hybrid” badge.
As a total company, GM has shown it’s colors in that past few months. It’s been a shame for decades. The likes of Roger Smith and Jim Lutz ran the show as good old boys.

I think CODA gets too much crap at times. Sure compared to today’s EVs they don’t stand a chance, but at the time they were introduced, most EVs being promoted projected the glorified golf cart image. CODA showed that an electric car had the chance to be a car first. CODA’s problem is they couldn’t develop beyond an interesting concept and other companies such as Tesla had to move EVs to the next step. I guess I may be considered too easy on CODA, but it was one of the electric cars that really got me interested in EVs to begin with. I’m sure I am not alone, and to me that makes it a success.

This write-up seems resaonably informed until the last bit: ” Then again, as the main electric vehicle on the market prior to the Chevy Spark EV (which no one knows is on the market), the Volt is a relatively weak product from the biggest automaker in the world at the time of the car’s development. It wasn’t until Tesla disrupted the industry that Dan Akerson, then chief executive, dedicated a task force to studying the EV maker in order to confront the challenge.” Oh dear, so much misinformation in one paragraph. Between the Volt and the Spark there were a few other EVs on the market. It’s almost like this guy covers GM but not other manufacturers. In addition to the very successful LEAF and the less successful Focus Electric there was a host of CARB compliance cars. If the Spark were not also a compliance car you could say we can’t count those, but the Spark is. And yes, Tesla gets tons of credit for disrupting the industry, but if it weren’t for the LEAF everyone would be saying “sure, Tesla can sell expensive luxury EVs for a profit, but no way can anyone sell an affordable EV for… Read more »

Would be nice if there were high performance models of the Leaf and i-MiEV.

Or if the OEM’s stopped making “special” cars and just used existing vehicles and made them EV’s. Eclipse and 370Z anyone?! Minor sheet metal changes are much cheaper and faster than entire new car development. OEM’s should do mid year model changes more often instead of waiting an entire year for any change.

Have been interested to read your comments, I don’t own a Volt or Tesla but have worked with EV technology for about 5 years. The Volt has 2 motor generators, an epicyclic gearbox, a fully specced ICE (not a simple constant speed generator), 2 or 3 clutches and a huge bunch of electronics to control the whole lot! They sell it for so much, because it costs so much to build. This is a vehicle that is too complicated for it’s own good. I would happily wager that a Tesla P85+ power train doesn’t cost more than what sits under the bonnet of a Volt. A clearer thinking approach from Chevy would either have ditched one of the motor generators and had the ICE connected directly to the epicyclic gearbox with the remaining motor generator, to give a cheaper and simpler solution or ditched the ICE all together, given it a larger battery pack and made it the world’s only CVT equipped EV, this gives the benefit of higher drive efficiency as you operate the main traction motor generator in its most efficient speed range. Chevy’s goals were laudable with the Volt, but the concept is too clever by half… Read more »